Hostname: page-component-6587cd75c8-rlsgg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-24T05:54:26.390Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Animalization of Kurds in Turkish-Speaking Social Media

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2024

Serhat Tutkal Open the ORCID record for Serhat Tutkal [Opens in a new window]
Serhat Tutkal*
Affiliation:
Center for Asian and African Studies, The College of Mexico, Mexico City
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article analyzes tweets in the Turkish language from November 2020 to May 2021 in which Kurds are explicitly mentioned that feature negative animalization directed toward Kurds and pro-Kurdish organizations. It systematically compares ways of animalization attribution, to what entities the animalization is attributed mostly, and the attributors (actors) of animalization. First, it argues that animalizing dehumanization directed at Kurds in the data set principally occurs for attributing the lack of four human traits: agency, civility, morality, and rationality. Second, it shows in what different ways the lack of these traits is attributed to Kurdish people in general and to major pro-Kurdish groups such as HDP (the largest pro-Kurdish legal political party) and PKK (the largest pro-Kurdish armed group). Finally, it discloses three main political networks among Twitter users within the data set and characterizes how negative animal references to Kurds, pro-Kurdish groups, and each other were used by these actors. Thus, this research seeks to establish a framework to study other ethnic conflicts from the perspective of animalization and invites further research on whether the trends that were found imply a general tendency around the world.

Keywords

dehumanizationKurdspolitical communicationTwitterTurkey
Type
Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , July 2024 , pp. 907 - 934
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Association for the Study of Nationalities

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Agamben, Giorgio. 2003. The Open: Man and Animal. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.10.1515/9780804767064CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akın, Ahmet Afşın, and Akın, Mehmet Dündar. 2007. “Zemberek, an Open Source NLP Framework for Turkic Languages.” Structure 10:1–5.Google Scholar
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2006. The Civil Sphere. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195162509.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Kay. 2000. “‘The Beast within’: Race, Humanity, and Animality.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 18 (3): 301–320. https://doi.org/10.1068/d229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andrighetto, Luca, Riva, Paolo, Gabbiadini, Alessandro, and Volpato, Chiara. 2016. “Excluded from All Humanity: Animal Metaphors Exacerbate the Consequences of Social Exclusion.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 35 (6): 628–644. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X16632267.Google Scholar
Aquinas, Saint Thomas. (1485) 1947. Summa Theologica. Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics.Google Scholar
Bar-Tal, Daniel. 1990. “Causes and Consequences of Delegitimization: Models of Conflict and Ethnocentrism.” Journal of Social Issues 46 (1): 65–81.10.1111/j.1540-4560.1990.tb00272.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blondel, Vincent D., Guillaume, Jean-Loup, Lambiotte, Renaud, and Lefebvre, Etienne. 2008. “Fast Unfolding of Communities in Large Networks.” Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment 2008 (10): article P10008.10.1088/1742-5468/2008/10/P10008CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bustamante, Priscilla, Jashnani, Gaurav, and Stoudt, Brett G.. 2019. “Cumulative Dehumanization in Everyday Policing: The Psychological, Affective, and Material Consequences of Discretionary Arrests.” Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 19 (1): 305–348.10.1111/asap.12187CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casier, Marlies, Jongerden, Joost, and Walker, Nic. 2011. “Fruitless attempts? The Kurdish Initiative and Containment of the Kurdish Movement in Turkey.” New Perspectives on Turkey 44:103–127.10.1017/S0896634600005951CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conover, Michael, Ratkiewicz, Jacob, Francisco, Matthew, Goncalves, Bruno, Menczer, Filippo, and Flammini, Alessandro. 2011. “Political Polarization on Twitter.” Fifth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media 5 (1): 89–96.10.1609/icwsm.v5i1.14126CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corut, Ilker. 2020. “Ethno‐Political Subordination and Patient Dissatisfaction: The Kurdish Case in Hakkâri during the AKP Period in Turkey, 2003–2013.” Nations and Nationalism 26 (3): 553–575.10.1111/nana.12545CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durkheim, Emile. (1912) 1995. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Ergin, Murat. 2014. “The Racialization of Kurdish Identity in Turkey.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 37 (2): 322–341.10.1080/01419870.2012.729672CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Essed, Philomena. 2020. “Humiliation, Dehumanization and the Quest for Dignity: Researching beyond Racism.” In Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Racisms, edited by Solomos, John, 442–455. Oxford: Routledge.10.4324/9781351047326-34CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fortunato, Santo. 2010. “Community Detection in Graphs.” Physics Reports 486 (3–5): 75–174.10.1016/j.physrep.2009.11.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallagher, Ryan J., Frank, Morgan R., Mitchell, Lewis, Schwartz, Aaron J., Reagan, Andrew J., Danforth, Christopher M., and Dodds, Peter Sheridan. 2021. “Generalized Word Shift Graphs: A Method for Visualizing and Explaining Pairwise Comparisons between Texts.” EPJ Data Science 10 (1): article 4.10.1140/epjds/s13688-021-00260-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallagher, Ryan J., Reagan, Andrew J., Danforth, Christopher M., and Dodds, Peter Sheridan. 2018. “Divergent Discourse between Protests and Counter-Protests: #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter,” edited by Moreno, Yamir. PLOS ONE 13 (4): article e0195644.10.1371/journal.pone.0195644CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goatly, Andrew. 2006. “Humans, Animals, and Metaphors.” Society & Animals 14 (1): 15–37.10.1163/156853006776137131CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gurses, Mehmet. 2020. “The Evolving Kurdish Question in Turkey.” Middle East Critique 29 (3): 307–318.10.1080/19436149.2020.1770448CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslam, Nick, Loughnan, Stephen, Kashima, Yoshihisa, and Bain, Paul. 2009. “Attributing and Denying Humanness to Others.” European Review of Social Psychology 19 (1): 55–85.10.1080/10463280801981645CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslam, Nick, Loughnan, Steve, and Sun, Pamela. 2011. “Beastly: What Makes Animal Metaphors Offensive?” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 30 (3): 311–325.10.1177/0261927X11407168CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslerig, Siduri J., Grummert, Sara E., and Vue, Rican. 2019. “Rationalizing Black Death: Sport Media’s Dehumanizing Coverage of Black College Football Players.” In Marginality in the Urban Center, edited by Brug, Peary, Ritter, Zachary S., and Roth, Kenneth R., 77–109. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96466-9_5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. (1651) 1998. Leviathan. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hume, David. (1739) 2007. A Treatise of Human Nature Volume 1. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hund, Wulf D. 2021. “Dehumanization and Social Death as Fundamentals of Racism.” In The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization, edited by Kronfeldner, Maria, 231–244. Oxford: Routledge.10.4324/9780429492464-chapter15CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derneği, İnsan Hakları. 2015a. “1 Kasım 2015 Milletvekili (Tekrar-Genel) Seçimleri Şiddetin Gölgesinde Gerçekleşmiş, Her Şeye Rağmen Türkiye Halkları Barışta Israrcı Olmuştur.”Google Scholar
Derneği, İnsan Hakları. 2015b. “7 Haziran 2015 Milletvekili Genel Seçimleri: Barış ve Demokrasi Kazanmıştır.” 2015. https://www.ihd.org.tr/7-haziran-2015-milletvekili-genel-secimleri-baris-ve-demokrasi-kazanmistir/.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1797) 1991. The Metaphysics of Morals. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511809620.008CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kovacevic, Diego Andrés Andueza. 2017. “La Animalización Como Mecanismo de Deshumanización En La Dictadura Militar Chilena (1973-1990).” Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Críticos Animales 1:151–179.Google Scholar
Kronfeldner, Maria. 2021. “Introduction: Mapping Dehumanization Studies.” In The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization, edited by Kronfeldner, Maria, 1–36. Oxford: Routledge.10.4324/9780429492464CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kteily, Nour, Bruneau, Emile, Waytz, Adam, and Cotterill, Sarah. 2015. “The Ascent of Man: Theoretical and Empirical Evidence for Blatant Dehumanization.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 109 (5): 901–931.10.1037/pspp0000048CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Latimer, Joanna, and Miele, Mara. 2013. “Naturecultures? Science, Affect and the Non-Human.” Theory, Culture & Society 30 (7–8): 5–31.10.1177/0263276413502088CrossRefGoogle Scholar
León-Portilla, Miguel. 2010. “El Indio Vivo Visto Por Los Frailes En El Siglo XVI.” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 41:281–295.Google Scholar
Loughnan, Stephen, and Haslam, Nick. 2007. “Animals and Androids.” Psychological Science 18 (2): 116–121.10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01858.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Machery, Edouard. 2021. “Dehumanization and the Loss of Moral Standing.” In The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization, edited by Kronfeldner, Maria, 145–158. Oxford: Routledge.10.4324/9780429492464-chapter9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mandel, Ruth. 1989. “Turkish Headscarves and the ‘Foreigner Problem’: Constructing Difference through Emblems of Identity.” New German Critique, no. 46, 27–46.10.2307/488313CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matamoros-Fernández, Ariadna. 2017. “Platformed Racism: The Mediation and Circulation of an Australian Race-Based Controversy on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.” Information, Communication & Society 20 (6): 930–946. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1293130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Memmi, Albert. (1982) 2000. Racism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Nas, Alparslan. 2018. Media Representations of the Cultural Other in Turkey. Chichester: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1007/978-3-319-78346-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nizzoli, Leonardo, Tardelli, Serena, Avvenuti, Marco, Cresci, Stefano, and Tesconi, Maurizio. 2020. “Coordinated Behavior on Social Media in 2019 UK General Election” (working paper, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY).10.1609/icwsm.v15i1.18074CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Driscoll, Dylan. 2014. “Is Kurdish Endangered in Turkey? A Comparison between the Politics of Linguicide in Ireland and Turkey.” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 14 (2): 270–288.10.1111/sena.12093CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oflazer, Kemal. 1995. “Two-Level Description of Turkish Morphology.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 9 (2): 137–148.10.1093/llc/9.2.137CrossRefGoogle Scholar
OHCHR. 2017. Report on the Human Rights Situation in South-East Turkey. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/TR/OHCHR_South-East_TurkeyReport_10March2017.pdf.Google Scholar
Okudan Dernek, Kadriye. 2014. “1990-2014 dönemi Kürt siyasal hareketinin söyleminin dönüşümü.” PhD diss., Akdeniz Üniversitesi.Google Scholar
Opotow, Susan. 1990. “Moral Exclusion and Injustice: An Introduction.” Journal of Social Issues 46 (1): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1990.tb00268.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ozer, Mert, Kim, Nyunsu, and Davulcu, Hasan. 2016. “Community Detection in Political Twitter Networks Using Nonnegative Matrix Factorization Methods.” In 2016 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), 81–88. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE.10.1109/ASONAM.2016.7752217CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Özsoy, Hisyar. 2013. “Introduction: The Kurds’ Ordeal with Turkey in a Transforming Middle East.” Dialectical Anthropology 37 (1): 103–111.10.1007/s10624-013-9297-yCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Özsoy, Hişyar. 2016. “Şeyh Said’in Kayıp Mezarı: Kürtlerin Egemenlik Mücadelesinde Hafıza-Mekân Diyalektiği.” In Öteki Olarak Ölmek, edited by İflazoğlu, Evrim C. and Demir, A. Aslı, 189–241. Ankara: Dipnot Yayınları.Google Scholar
Abril, Pardo, Graciela, Neyla. 2005. “Representación de Los Actores Armados en Conflicto en la Prensa Colombiana.” Forma y Función 18:167–196.Google Scholar
Protner, Beja. 2018. “Reading and Feeling Gender in Perpetrator Graffiti and Photography in Turkey.” Kurdish Studies 6 (1): 59–83. https://doi.org/10.33182/ks.v6i1.434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radpey, Loqman. 2022. “Kurdistan on the Sèvres Centenary: How a Distinct People Became the World’s Largest Stateless Nation.” Nationalities Papers, 50 (6): 1187–1216.10.1017/nps.2021.32CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reisigl, Martin, and Wodak, Ruth. 2000. Discourse and Discrimination: Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Robertson, Ronald E., Olteanu, Alexandra, Diaz, Fernando, Shokouhi, Milad, and Bailey, Peter. 2021. “‘I Can’t Reply with That’: Characterizing Problematic Email Reply Suggestions.” In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–18. New York: Association for Computing Machinery.Google Scholar
Saatci, Mustafa. 2002. “Nation–States and Ethnic Boundaries: Modern Turkish Identity and Turkish–Kurdish Conflict.” Nations and Nationalism 8 (4): 549–564. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8219.00065.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Said, Edward W. 2003. Orientalism. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Savage, Rowan. 2013. “Modern Genocidal Dehumanization: A New Model.” Patterns of Prejudice 47 (2): 139–161. https://doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2012.754575.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soleimani, Kamal, and Mohammadpour, Ahmad. 2022. “Soberanía y políticas de desarrollo en Palestina y Kurdistán oriental.” Estudios de Asia y África 57 (2): 249–287. https://doi.org/10.24201/eaa.v57i2.2738.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steuter, Erin, and Wills, Deborah. 2008. At War with Metaphor: Media, Propaganda, and Racism in the War on Terror. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Steuter, Erin, and Wills, Deborah. 2010. “‘The Vermin Have Struck Again’: Dehumanizing the Enemy in Post 9/11 Media Representations.” Media, War & Conflict 3 (2): 152–167.10.1177/1750635210360082CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuurman, Siep. 2021. “Dehumanization before the Columbian Exchange.” In The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization, edited by Kronfeldner, Maria, 39–51. Oxford: Routledge.10.4324/9780429492464-chapter2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talebinejad, M. Reza, and Dastjerdi, H. Vahid. 2005. “A Cross-Cultural Study of Animal Metaphors: When Owls Are Not Wise!” Metaphor and Symbol 20 (2): 133–150.10.1207/s15327868ms2002_3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tipler, Caroline, and Ruscher, Janet B.. 2014. “Agency’s Role in Dehumanization: Non-Human Metaphors of Out-Groups.” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 8 (5): 214–228‥10.1111/spc3.12100CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tutkal, Serhat. 2022. “Dehumanization on Twitter in the Turkish–Kurdish Conflict.” Media, War & Conflict 15 (2): 165–182.10.1177/1750635220925844CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tutkal, Serhat, 2023. Tweets about Kurds in Turkish Language (Harvard Dataverse, V1; accessed January 13, 2024). https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WOICCK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ünlü, Barış. 2016. “The Kurdish Struggle and the Crisis of the Turkishness Contract.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 42 (4–5): 397–405.10.1177/0191453715625715CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ünlü, Barış. 2018. Türklük Sözleşmesi: Oluşumu, İşleyişi ve Krizi. Ankara: Dipnot Yayınları.Google Scholar
van Bruinessen, Martin. 1994. “The Suppression of the Dersim Rebellion in Turkey (1937-38).” In Conceptual and Historical Dimensions of Genocide, edited by Andreopoulos, George J., 141–170. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
van Dijk, Teun A. 1993. Elite Discourse and Racism. Newbury Park: SAGE.10.4135/9781483326184CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Dijk, Teun A. 2021. Antiracist Discourse: Theory and History of a Macromovement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108956079CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viki, G. Tendayi, Winchester, Laura, Titshall, Laura, Chisango, Tadios, Pina, Afroditi, and Russell, Rebecca. 2006. “Beyond Secondary Emotions: The Infrahumanization of Outgroups Using Human–Related and Animal–Related Words.” Social Cognition 24 (6): 753–775.10.1521/soco.2006.24.6.753CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wahlström, Mattias, Törnberg, Anton, and Ekbrand, Hans. 2021. “Dynamics of Violent and Dehumanizing Rhetoric in Far-Right Social Media.” New Media & Society 23 (11): 3290–3311.10.1177/1461444820952795CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, James P. 2021. “Digital Nativism: Twitter, Migration Discourse and the 2019 Election.” New Media & Society 25 (10): 2618–2643.10.1177/14614448211032980CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walzer, Amy S., and Czopp, Alexander M.. 2011. “Able but Unintelligent: Including Positively Stereotyped Black Subgroups in the Stereotype Content Model.” The Journal of Social Psychology 151 (5): 527–530.10.1080/00224545.2010.503250CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yarkin, Gullistan. 2020. “Fighting Racism in Turkey: Kurdish Homeownership as an Anti-Racist Practice.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 43 (15): 2705–2723.10.1080/01419870.2019.1685116CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yeğen, Mesut. 2016. “Armed Struggle to Peace Negotiations: Independent Kurdistan to Democratic Autonomy, or The PKK in Context.” Middle East Critique 25 (4): 365–383.10.1080/19436149.2016.1218162CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Tutkal supplementary material

Tutkal supplementary material
Download Tutkal supplementary material(File)
File 38.2 KB